Ratings of Keyboards

Harold A Climer

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Jun 6, 2007, 8:46:17 PM6/6/07

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I was wondering if anyone has systematically done tests on recent HP
calculator keyboards?
I know about the early HP49G+ KBs.
How would you rate the 49 etc?
ie
1. How long will they last? MTBF
2. Keybounce
3. etc
Harold A Climer
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Dept of Physics,Geology,& Astronomy
Room 309 Grote Hall
615 McCallie Ave
Chattanooga TN 37403
Harold...@utc.edu

Giancarlo

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Jun 7, 2007, 3:06:48 AM6/7/07

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> Harold-Cli...@utc.edu

Hi Harold.
Interesting point... (being my job strictly related to reliability and
quality issues of mass products as well).
I think that the best source of information would be the factory and
the labs that tested the (pre)production batches of calcs, because of:
- testing standards
- repetability of tests
- quantity and significance of logged data
OTOH, I expect they would not be willing to publish those figures,
methinks (sensible data?), but I'd be more than happy to be proved
wrong :-)
As far as "individuals" go, even though with not so thorough testing
campaigns, it would be undoubtedly interesting to know some kind of
results (I haven't got any :-).
Best regards.
Giancarlo

Raymond Del Tondo

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Jun 7, 2007, 4:21:21 AM6/7/07

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Hi,

one of the HPCC Datafile issues from last year had a related topic.
Check www.hpcc.org

HTH

Raymond

"Giancarlo" <giancarlo...@indesitcompany.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1181200008....@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

JYA

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Jun 7, 2007, 6:09:07 AM6/7/07

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Giancarlo wrote:
> Interesting point... (being my job strictly related to reliability and
> quality issues of mass products as well).
> I think that the best source of information would be the factory and
> the labs that tested the (pre)production batches of calcs, because of:
> - testing standards
> - repetability of tests
> - quantity and significance of logged data

Do you actually they actually did such tests ??? Looking at how crap
some keyboards were, how much they were changing between calculators I
think that you're giving them more credit than they deserve.

JY

Giancarlo

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Jun 7, 2007, 6:37:26 AM6/7/07

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Hi Jean Yves.
Yes, you're right: maybe I was too naive in supposing that :-)
But living my company's everyday struggle within a strict new product
introduction procedure, full of milestones, test reports, sanctions
(but also failures...), hard tools and stuff like that, drove me to
suppose that a company such as HP *ought* to be used to that
processese as well....
Actually, the "wavy" quality level of some of the last models means a
poor process control, to say the least...
A bientot.
Giancarlo

John H Meyers

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Jun 7, 2007, 7:44:02 AM6/7/07

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On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:46:17 -0500, Harold A Climer wrote:

> I know about the early HP49G+ KBs.

> How would you rate the 49[G] etc?

> 2. Keybounce

I've always wondered, if you dropped a 49G
with all its rubber keys facing down,
exactly how high it would bounce :)

There are many superb photos
(and less than angelically sweet comments about 49G keyboards)
at http://holyjoe.net/hp/HP49.htm [scroll down]

Is this Joe?
(sorry about loss of your "calculator hand,"
due to keys being so hard to press in those days)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Angel_ivory_Louvre_OA5839213922.jpg

Photo source details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Angel_ivory_Louvre_OA5839213922.jpg

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